


at the End of Things

by KrisEleven



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, M/M, McCall Pack, Pining Derek, Post-Season/Series 04, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-03-29 05:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3884782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrisEleven/pseuds/KrisEleven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You worry too much,” Stiles told him, less than a week before the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Derek stopped himself from growling into the phone only because he knew Stiles would derail the entire conversation to make fun of him for it. “You’re going to be by yourself, across the country.”

“I’m nineteen years old,” Stiles said, patronizingly. “I’m even allowed to go to the store, if I promise not to talk to strangers or take their candy. And believe me, I _have_ been tempted.”

“It’s not safe. The rest of the Pack is coming home. No one will be there to help you if something happens,” he said. 

“The rest of the Pack go to colleges all around the country,” Stiles argued. “It’s only Lydia and Danny and I here usually, anyway. It’s not like it’ll be a huge difference in my support system.”

“It’s not safe,” Derek insisted.

“Is Harvard a hub of criminal, or supernatural shenanigans, in the broody spaces of your imagination?”

Derek gave in and growled. 

Stiles, as expected, laughed at him. “Derek,” Stiles said, mocking and fond. “I have three interviews for summer placements this week. Believe me, I don’t want to stay here while everyone else goes back to Beacon Hills for spring break, but it’s what I have to do because I am practicing at this _adulting_ thing I’ve heard so much about. Apparently I have to do it if I don’t want to bring dishonour to my family when my university releases me unto the world in two years.”

 _But I miss you,_ clacked against the back of Derek’s teeth. He clenched his jaw and refused to give it voice. He had been looking forward to seeing Stiles most of all, and he felt the disappointment settle heavy under his ribs.

“Don’t do anything stupid while Lydia’s not there to save you,” he said instead.

“Aw,” Stiles cooed over the phone, all the sarcasm brought 3000 miles over the cellular signal intact. “I knew you cared.”

“Stiles –” Derek growled.

“You worry too much,” Stiles told him. “Say hi to everyone for me. I’ll see you in two months!” With that chipper promise, Stiles was gone.

\--

Two days later, Derek was halfway through his patrol of Beacon Hills when he smelled it. 

Stiles would have called it his skulking practice, this compulsive need Derek felt to see for himself that the town was safe and sound every evening. Somewhere between the Argents, and Peter, and the Alphas, and the darach, and the Argents, and the kanima, and the nogitsune, and an entire family of wendigo, and the deadpool, and Beserkers, and the fucking Argents _again_ , Derek had developed an unhealthy paranoia, was Stiles’ assessment.

Derek had just stared at him, eyebrows raised, until Stiles acknowledged that his own recited list of shit Beacon Hills had put them through kind of proved Derek’s point.

If Stiles had been in Beacon Hills, where he belonged, he would have walked the patrol with Derek. He would have moaned and complained and driven Derek _crazy_ the entire time, but he would have done it. Instead, he was in the second of his interviews. Derek checked the time on his phone, calculating the time difference. He should call him, he thought, running the pad of his thumb over his phone. To see how it went.

He was just about to unlock his screen when the scent of rotting flesh filled his nose. He fought off the urge to sneeze, nearly gagged at its sudden, overwhelming strength. Where the hell was that coming from? Tucking the sleeve of his jacket against his nose so the scent of leather _slightly_ masked the putrid smell, Derek moved toward it. He was expecting to come across a dead body, some wretched evidence of the newest supernatural monster come to Beacon Hills. He moved in the alley between closed business in the warehouse district, passing the dumpster behind an advertising firm and a dance studio, following the trail. Instead of a body, though, the only thing in the alley was a person, moving towards him. Derek paused, waiting for them to draw closer, straightening his fingers and clenching them, to release his claws. They would get more than they bargained for, if they attacked _him_ in a dark alley. 

The smell was so rancid he was squinting into the wind, eyes watering. They would have had to _roll_ in decomposing bodies to smell that bad. They continued moving toward him, the lights in the parking lot behind them reducing them to a silhouette in Derek’s vision.

Roll around in the dead, or be dead themselves, Derek thought idly, as they took a last stiff step towards him. Then, with a rattling moan deep in their chest, they attacked.  
Derek held them off easily, but wasn’t expecting them to shift in his grip, throwing themselves down and biting a chunk out of his forearm. He shouted in surprise, his phone going flying. He grabbed the hair on the back on their head and pulled them away. They tore the flesh from his arm as he threw them back. They hit the pavement hard and rolled, boneless. Derek heard the crack of their head hitting the asphalt, but they were lurching to their feet and rushing him. There was no strategy to their attack, the only goal seeming to get their teeth on Derek again. 

Derek was opposed to that, on principle. 

With a slash, he cut their throat, but they kept coming. Grabbing them, avoiding their teeth, he spun them forward and crashed their head into the brick wall. They flailed, but made no sounds of acknowledging the pain. Bringing them back, he swung them into the wall again with his enhanced strength. He heard the skull and neck fracture. One of those seemed to do the trick, and the body fell. 

Derek picked up his phone before returning to the body. He nudged it over with his foot, angrily nursing the bite on his arm. He furrowed his eyebrows when the light from the distant streetlight lit the face. Mr. Anderson was one of Lydia’s neighbours, and had yelled at Scott once for driving his motorcycle on the street in the middle of the night. It woke his dog, he had said, and was unneighbourly. He was seventy if he was a day.

Derek sighed, looking down at the body as his arm healed. He had spent enough time with Stiles to know what this meant.

 _Fucking_ zombies.

\--

Derek went to Scott’s, still pissed off that zombies – of all the things – had come to Beacon Hills. He had sworn zombies didn’t exist, when Stiles had asked (and asked, and _asked_ ). Now he would have to eat his words, or swear the Pack to secrecy. He was pondering what he would have to promise them to never tell Stiles about this, ever, as he walked up Scott’s street. 

It was ridiculously early. He was already anticipating getting to wake Scott up as dawn was just touching the horizon for a _legitimate Alpha issue_ , because that was always hilarious. When Scott’s house came into view, though, Derek’s amused anticipation faded into concern and he hurried his steps. Lydia’s car, the Sheriff’s cruiser, the Argent’s truck _and_ the Yukimera’s SUV were parked haphazardly in the driveway and onto the street. He pulled his phone from his pocket as he crossed the street on an angle, cursing when he saw that the drop during the fight had turned it off. By the time he got to the front door, it was turned on and buzzing angrily with missed notifications. Jumping the porch steps, Derek knocking perfunctorily and opened the door, stepping into the front hall. Melissa came around the corner, eyes wide and arms wrapped around her middle. She was dressed in soft pink pajamas, and her hair was flat on one side. 

“Come here,” she ordered, and disappeared back into the living room.

They were crowded on the couches, gazes intent on the screen. The blue glow of it lit the room, and the paleness of their faces. Melissa had hurried to where the Sheriff was pacing in front of the window, his cell phone held against his ear, his other hand repeatedly tapping on the hip that usually held his gun. She reached out as if to touch his shoulder as he passed her but didn’t quite reach him, letting her hand hover.

Derek turned to the rest of them. Kira had one hand over her mouth, the other clenched in Scott’s tightly. Liam sat on the arm of the couch beside her. Derek moved around the couch so he could see the screen, passing by Argent’s post at the corner nearest the exit, and Kira’s parents, sitting together on the small couch off to the side. Deaton stood on the other side, a touch of grey in his dark skin. The screen showed a city in flames. It was the scene of riots, of disaster, of war. There was the tightness of panic in the corner of the announcers’ eyes as the relayed the news.

“Where?” Derek asked, thinking of Mr. Henderson and Stiles’ zombie lore. He had thought it was just another of Beacon Hills’ monsters. If it was an infection…. They were a small, secluded town. How bad did it have to be to reach them?

“Everywhere,” Scott replied.

“They keep getting footage from more cities,” Kira elaborated. “It’s all cell videos, apparently their reporters are… they’re gone. This is Washington,” she nodded at the screen, “but they’ve had reports from all over the States, from Canada and Mexico and Europe. It’s everywhere.”

Derek watched the world burn a second longer before it hit him. “Stiles.”

“Mr. Stilinski can’t get through,” Scott said dully. The footage had shifted to a reporter with a map behind them, infected cities marked with red that spread like blood in the water. “He’s been calling but Stiles isn’t picking up.”

Stiles’ dad swore venomously, and moved to throw his phone before stopping himself. He hugged it to his chest for a moment, breathing hard, eyes closed. Then he redialed a number and pressed it back to his ear. Melissa bridged the gap between them, hand resting gently just above his elbow, her face lined in concern. All Derek wanted to do was _howl_ , but the missing member of his pack was too far to hear. 

Let it just be distance.

He sank down on Scott’s other side, pressing against his Alpha as they watched the world end.

\--

Someone somewhere kept the cell system up for two and a half more days. It was nearly useless, so overloaded only the busy signal was available. Stiles’ dad would have kept calling Stiles until the phone broke, if he could, but once Derek relayed the news of Mr. Anderson, he and Melissa had been forced to leave the house. They would be needed at the station, and in the hospital. Scott organized patrols for the rest of them, especially since Derek was still showing no sign of a reaction to the bite. Argent was trying to get in contact with Hunters close by. Lydia and her mother – brought in on the secret, now – were upstairs. Lydia was next to useless, overwhelmed to the point of requiring sedation in the wake of the breadth of death now surrounding them. 

Derek called Stiles’ phone. He went with the Sheriff to the station, too, and patrolled the streets. He helped Melissa move equipment and set up generators. They went to houses all over town and instructed people to save water, to save gas, to save food. They helped quell riots and looting and somehow – despite the news of _werewolves_ becoming common knowledge – Beacon Hills avoided outright panic and began to strengthen into something ready to weather a storm. He brought newly bitten wolves – those Scott could save from the zombie infection – to safe houses. He taught them about what the Bite means. He talked to Cora and was assured that she was safe. He killed zombies.

And through it all, he called Stiles.

It became route, to hit the smarmy picture Stiles had taken of himself in those stupid wolf sunglasses – where had he even found them? – and put as his contact picture on Derek’s phone. Derek listened to the busy signal, that pre-recorded message that he had heard so many times it had rotated through and past unbearably annoying too many times to count. 

_Due to the number of callers, service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later._

Derek called again, waited for the click and the voice to begin speaking – “Hello, Derek?” – and nearly thumbed the END CALL button automatically before it registered. 

“Stiles?” he said, frantic. He was standing in the street, alone, clutching his phone closer to his ear as if it could bring the voice on the other end to him.

“Oh my God, Derek,” Stiles cried. “I’ve been trying to call. I’ve been trying to call everyone!”

“We’re here. Everyone’s okay. Your dad’s okay.”

“Oh, thank God. Jesus.” Derek could hear him struggling to calm his breathing. “I guess I should have listened to you about coming home, eh?”

Derek couldn’t help his laugh, even though it felt ripped from him. “Where are you?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

Stiles was silent for a moment and then his breath hitched. Derek felt numb coldness begin to spread from his chest outwards. “We got out of the city,” Stiles said finally. “A bunch of us from the dorms. We thought, if we got to smaller towns, that maybe we could steal some cars or something, but these things. They’re everywhere. We only got to like Wayland.”

“Where are you _now_?” Derek asked, forcing calm into his voice. 

“In some apartment building,” Stiles replied. “We’ve barricaded ourselves in, but its… its bad, Derek. I don’t think…” He stopped, voice thick with tears. “Is my dad with you?”

Derek cursed himself for not thinking of that. “I can get to him,” he promised, starting to jog towards the station. “Stay on the line.”

“Okay,” Stiles said. He sounded so much younger, when he was afraid. 

“Are you safe,” Derek asked as he hurried down Main, the boarded up shopfronts closing him in. They were saving gas, so Derek hadn’t taken his car and the station was clear across town.

“They were right behind us,” Stiles admitted. “We tried to keep them out of the building, but I don’t think it. I don’t think…. Everyone has been very impressed with my supernatural ass-kicking know-how,” he told Derek, laughing a little. “I’ve been trying to keep them all going, you know?” He paused. “They’re sleeping. I’m hiding in the bathroom so they can’t hear me, because I don’t think we’re getting out of here and they’re already so scared and I can’t, Der’. I can’t save them and I’m scared. God, I’m so scared –”

“Stiles, calm down. You’re going to be okay. Can you get out of there? Can you get to a car?”

“We’re trapped in –” Stiles’ breath hitched. He was quiet for a long moment. 

“Stiles?” Derek asked. He had broken into a run, sprinting across the lacrosse field, taking the steps on the other side by threes. The motion of his run distorted the sound of the phone as it jostled against his ear, but he could hear the voices on Stiles’ end, now, rising in volume. “Answer me!”

“Have you got to my dad?” Stiles asked. His voice was small.

“I’m almost there,” Derek said. “Stay in the bathroom. Don’t leave the bathroom, just stay locked in there. Is there a window?”

“I can’t leave them out there alone,” Stiles said. He took a deep, bracing breath. “Okay. Okay. Tell my dad I’m sorry I couldn’t say goodbye, and that I love him, okay? You have to do it for me, allergy to feelings or not, okay?” He spoke over Derek as he tried to cut him off. “Just, don’t tell him about me being scared. Don’t tell him that part.”

“Stay in the fucking bathroom,” Derek bit out, still running. He could see the Sheriff’s station. The voices on the other end of the line were rising in panic and there were loud crashes and bangs – the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting hard against wood or steel. 

“Take care of the Pack,” Stiles said. “Love you, Der’.”

Derek stopped running when the call ended. He stood in the street, panting, staring at the phone in his hand, the call directory showing Stiles’ face. He stared at his, breath coming faster and faster until the howl was torn from his throat with all the force of a scream.

The Pack howled back, but it didn’t fill the empty space.


	2. Chapter 2

Derek shed his jacket just inside the door to the McCall house. He kicked his shoes off, nudging them into place along with the dozens that already lined up along the wall, neatly obedient in the face of the risk of Melissa’s wrath; she was okay with them using her house as a base of operations only if it didn’t mean them grinding dirt into her carpets. No one mentioned the incongruity of the group of them sitting around in sock feet debating their plans and plotting the town’s survival. Derek – leaning in his usual corner – watched Scott wiggle his toes as they discussed which plots of land they would be converting to crops. The meeting devolved, as was typical, into arguments about resources, which were short, and fears, always in abundance. 

The Sheriff wasn’t in his usual seat, but there had been some disturbance in town even Derek had heard, out on his patrols through the Preserve, so that was no surprise. Scott always did better with his solid presence and support, and floundered slightly while trying to maintain the control of people two and three times his age. Melissa sat beside Scott, Kira on his other side, Noshiko at one end, and the rest of the generally agreed-upon leaders of Beacon Hills around them. Derek let the conversation swirl about his head, listening only when a member of his Pack spoke up. He would have avoided the meetings entirely, had Scott not ordered him to get to them with a hint of Alpha iron in his voice.

The Mayor, a librarian from the elementary school Derek recognized from _his_ time there, and a PTA soccermom who had kept the entire fifth grade alive with a tire iron when their field trip coincided with the apocalypse were the last to leave. When the door had closed behind them, Scott let out a huffed breath and lowered his forehead to the table. His mom smiled at him, reaching over to pat at his arm, absently fond. There was pride in her expression, beyond the weariness. 

“Do they have to so much?”

“Have to what?” Kira asked, smiling.

“Everything.” 

Kira set her head beside Scott’s, facing him. “You did good,” she assured him. 

“Give them time,” Noshiko added. 

“They’re the best leaders we’ve got – and they’re doing a good job of it – but they’re still not used to all of this,” Melissa added. A waved hand encompassed everything that had happened in their lives over the past two months – two _years_ , for them. “You’ll all find a rhythm soon enough.”

She stood, groaning as she leaned side to side, back cracking. “I have a shift at the hospital,” Melissa reminded her son. “Get some sleep tonight,” she said firmly, holding his chin in one hand. She released it when he nodded, and left the room Melissa with a touch to Derek’s arm that made his heart ache.

“Lessons,” Noshiko told Kira, who groaned. Scott smiled up at her when she climbed to her feet reluctantly, and leaned down to kiss him goodbye. A stately nod from the elder, and a smile and wave from Kira for Derek, and they were gone. When they were alone, Scott turned to Derek, his expression serious. 

Derek tamped down every one of the biting comments that could derail this conversation before it started, because it would hurt to fight his Alpha now. He was so tired of that.

“Grant Wilson asked for the Bite,” Scott said.

Derek blinked. It hadn’t been the opening he was expecting. Not another reminder that Derek wasn’t invincible, or that he needed to eat and sleep, or that the Pack needed him for more than his endless patrols. Not another conversation skirting around the person neither of them could mention, even while having endless conversations about how he was gone.

“Who?” Derek asked, instead.

“He was in your grade in school,” Scott said. “He knew you, he said.”

Derek grunted, shrugging. Everyone had known him, even before he was the kid whose family had burned to death and _everyone had known him_. High school was a blur, now. Fuzzy in the way that poor quality movies put on for white noise barely left the smear of their plot in his brain. Like those years happened to someone else.

He supposed that was coping at its best, but he didn’t like to look at it too closely.

“Did he get bitten?” Derek asked, shaking off his thoughts. He was surprised when Scott shook his head. They had discovered right away that the Pack was immune to the zombie infection. They had also found out – as the secret of werewolves became known to the people of Beacon Hills – that if someone was infected, they had nearly a half hour to get themselves the Bite and they could be saved. The ranks of the Pack had swollen, until the perimeter of the town was finally established and kept zombie-free. Both Scott and Derek had assumed that they would be overrun with requests. How could anyone not be tempted, when it meant being free of the fear raging through the rest of the country. They had prepared to set up their newly bitten members, and dozens more, but the requests had never come.

In the face of an inhuman threat, humanity became a point of pride. The people of Beacon Hills clung to the imperfection of it, despite the danger. Scott had faced the realization with a wry smile that Derek couldn’t look at very long.

“He asked for it,” Scott said. “He wants to help with patrols. He wants to keep the town safe.”

“I don’t need help with patrols,” Derek said, rolling his shoulders. “Liam helps, and Mason. The new ones help, between moons.” He didn’t want more help. He didn’t want more time alone in his loft, with a phone that no longer showed him the picture.

“He should be allowed to defend his home, if that’s what he wants,” Scott said, quiet and serious. “And I know you don’t like them to take over your patrols. I know you want to be alone. I just think –” He paused, looking at Derek with his brow pinched. “More Pack. It’ll be good for the town. And for you.”

Derek made a face at his view of the street outside the window. The street was clear. 

“Okay,” Scott said, to himself, but always forgetting that Derek’s hearing was as good as his. “At night, I want you to take a group of the new ‘wolves out. No more going by yourself.” Derek turned back to him, mouth opening with an angry retort that was cut off by Scott’s impression. “It’s been two months,” Scott said. “I know it’s not any easier. _Believe me_ , I know.” His expression crumpled a little, before he built it back up, the hint of blood hitting Derek’s nose as Scott dug claws into the side of his leg to ground himself. “I need you to help me lead them. Especially the new ‘wolves. To teach them what it means to be Pack. I need you to help me protect this town,” he told Derek, expression serious. “It’s you and me left, now. We’re brothers… right?”

Derek took a breath, held it. Released it, and fumbled over the start of his sentence. “Right. Okay.”

“Okay,” Scott repeated. He stood, regarding Derek with concern. He didn’t tell him to sleep, or eat, to just leave off on Patrols, please. “I’ll have them ready for you at seven,” he told him firmly. 

Derek left, enough time for a sweep of the town and edge of the Preserve before then.

\--

Derek knew Argent also led patrols in the Preserve, but it was easy to avoid them. There was no good in joining in, not when there was always the chance that something could slip through the net they tried to weave, safe around the town. Instead, when he heard the crunch of boots in undergrowth and the quiet murmur of voices, he usually went deeper into the wild. To where it was quiet enough he could hear the threat before it reached them. To where he could take apart the zombies who reached them, trying to take more of what he had tentatively thought of as _his_ and _safe_ , just like something always did.

The five new ‘wolves Scott had chosen to send out with him were no different, and Derek longed to leave them behind almost as soon as they stepped into the deeper shadows of the trees. They romped like puppies, their steps loud like their feet were too big for their bodies. They were endlessly distracted by the way their hearing and sight had changed, not to mention _smells_ , which had never meant much of anything to them before. Two sisters who had been bitten the first week – Jule and Christine – spent nearly twenty minutes chasing ‘something big’ before Derek could listen himself and tell them it was a squirrel fifty feet away.

Derek kept them close, teaching them how to use their senses. He borrowed from Scott, more than he used his own (short-lived) experiences as an Alpha. He tried to remember how he was taught, and shied away from memories of his mother holding his clawed hand and leading him and Laura through the trees.

No wonder he had done everything differently, when he had betas of his own to teach. 

(No wonder it had turned out so wrong).

After two weeks, with nights off around the full moon for them to be with Scott, Derek began to feel less like running into the wild and leaving the group of them to fend for themselves. He didn’t even have to try to picture how disappointed Scott’s face would look to keep himself from leaving the puppies to find their own way back into town.

He was 95% sure they would make it.

Brian tripped over a root and brained himself on a tree when his reflexed over-compensated him into a backflip.

75%. 

He should probably stay with them.

At some point, their patrols had taken on a rhythm that was less military and more… ‘wolf. They ran along worn paths that cut the natural lines of the landscape, splashing through summer-dry creek beds and jumping fallen mushroom-covered logs. They swung past the main roads into Beacon Hills, close enough to hear the chatter of the guards at their posts there, on the lookout for refugees finding their way to the beacon of safety their town had become in radio chatter across the state. The smell of asphalt baking in the sun made Grant wrinkle his nose, and they stayed in the trees, making a wide loop around town. 

The sun set, and instead of making their way back to town, for everyone to head off to their own beds and collapse into dreams while Derek ran the town just once more (twice more, three times, maybe, just four), they ended up with a fire lit in a clearing. Derek hovered at the edges of the group, looking into the shadows that might still have a threat lurking out there, but he was more hesitant to leave them, still new and unafraid with what felt like endless power, so he stayed close enough to be lit, but not to feel the warmth on his skin.

His suspicions were confirmed when Jule pulled out a tiny block of chocolate and a bag of marshmallows. Grant met his gaze over the fire, laughing at Derek’s expression, which was no doubt unimpressed at best that their Very Serious Patrol had turned into a camping trip.

(Derek remembered Grant, suddenly, from school. Laura had had a crush on him, and had tried to - not so subtlety - get Derek to talk about him at dinner. Uncle Peter had caught on right away, and had teased her until their mom put a stop to it. Derek pushed the thought away, angry that it had intruded).

“You know what I miss?” Liam – who had taken to joining them on these runs – asked the sky. He was tipped back, eating marshmallows off a stick like a kebab. “PVR.”

“We don’t have any TV,” Mason reminded him. “How about we start with basic cable?”

“I could go for some Dr. Phil,” Christine said, biting her lip to hide a smile.

"You can't change what you don't acknowledge," both Jule and Brian drawled together.

"I miss new movies," Liam said. “Going to the theaters?”

“Tacos,” Jule said, and everyone groaned.

“No food,” her sister protested, poking at her.

“How can we do a What I Miss at the End of the World list without food?” she retorted, poking back.

The list continued, sides being taken as food they’d never enjoy again was moaned over. They ended up with a complicated points system that no one understood, but which made them laugh as punishments were handed out randomly for the ones that truly hit close to home. Despite it, the list of losses was light-hearted.

Derek sat in the darkness outside their circle of light, staring into the trees, his own list growing, unbidden, and all that was on it was him, him, him, him, him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole 'let's take months between updates' is actually a thing I know about myself, and is why I never post a WIP. But this was supposed to be just two parts, I swear. That I could have managed. More than that, and things get, well, unruly. However, that should be the last of the shenanigans on my part. There is one more chapter and that's it, and I WILL have it up next week.

Derek had left Beacon Hills for almost a year, after Kate came back. It hadn’t been the same, as the first time. Finally - _finally_ \- he hadn’t been angry. He had made peace with his mother, though his vision of her, Peter was unable to hurt anyone without him needing to destroy more of his family, Kate was no longer lurking in the shadows of his head anymore. He, Braedon, and Malia had went to track down the Desert Wolf. When that trail went cold and Braedon had jobs lined up around the country she couldn’t put off any longer, she and Derek had parted amicably. Derek had taken Malia to meet Cora. He paid for her ticket home when summer ended, and he stayed with his sister. It was so different, being able to get to know her without danger weighing them down and holding them back. Her Pack was good for her. He left knowing she was happy, and had – for the first time – seen that in the future for himself.

He went back to Beacon Hills. And it wasn’t because tragedy drew him, or danger had driven him, or obligation had forced his hand. He went because he wanted to. There were good things he could do there, he had friends who missed him… it was _home_. He got texts from the Pack, and was updated on their lives every week when Stiles called him Sunday evenings. 

They were almost through their senior year, the miscollection of teenagers who were his Pack. The loft became the meeting house for their studies. They were supposed to be doing their final projects and studying for their exams, but more often they were distracted and loud and happy. The apartment was filled with their scent, and the sounds of them, and their _stuff_ , which, why did they leave all their shit everywhere. Derek felt like a grumpy old man, picking up after them. He was fairly sure Stiles was doing it on purpose to watch him huff about. 

Stiles stayed late in the evenings after the rest of them wandered home to be fed by their parents. Derek usually worked on projects he had around the building, since living in the building alone had finally lost its appeal, or putter about cleaning up after the Pack while Stiles studied before they put a movie on. Derek had thrown a pair of socks at the back of Stiles’ head because _why, what happened that you took them off here_ and Stiles turned around to rest his chin on the back on the couch, grinning like a loon and Derek had felt it hit him like a punch to the gut.

Somehow, nearly a year of daily texts and hours-long weekly phone calls, months of spending every day together with the pack and nearly every evening together alone, all the _shit_ they’d gone through to get to this point, hadn’t been enough, but a pair of _socks_ had finally clued Derek in to the fact that he was in love with Stiles.

\--

It wasn’t that Derek disliked Grant, at all. He actually found their patrols together the best option out of the new recruits, since Grant did little talking and had taken to the Bite like he was born to it. It was just… despite their differences, something about the steady calm of Grant’s presence put Derek in mind of Boyd. He had thought – after losing so much in the meantime – that he had stopped missing his betas with that aching pulse that had been so present when he was still their Alpha and their Pack, but instead he just thought on it less. When they came to mind, they hurt as much as the day he’d lost them.

They walked the perimeter of the town in silence. It was a crisp fall day, the falling leaves scenting the air and making walking silently an extra challenge. They fluttered down around them, the peripheral movement a distraction Grant was working on filtering out, though he was getting frustrated. Derek kept his attention part-way on him – Grant needed the distraction of firm instruction when he was too hard on himself in his training – and the other on the woods.

Grant took a deep, huffed breath and Derek reached out to grip his elbow. “Try distracting yourself with another task that has nothing to do with sight,” he suggested. “Scent out the types of trees we are passing, and let yourself look at the leaves or not.”

Grant took another breath, this one calming, and nodded agreement. Their footsteps crunched through the debris underfoot for a stretch of time as they completed their circuit of the eastern side of the Preserve. As they came along the road, they could see the guards’ camp at the entrance to town. Argent had helped them build a hunting shelter in the road early on, though the guards there were sitting in the road on lawn chairs, playing some card game on a rickety aluminum table set between them. Derek and Grant reentered the woods on the other side of the road without stopping.

“Hey, Derek?” Grant asked as they adjusted to the shadows of the trees. Derek looked back at him, questioning. “Do you think that it’s over?”

Derek felt his eyebrows snap together. “Over?” he asked.

“It’s been more than a month since the last zombie we saw. The last people who’d found us, who’d heard the rumours of safety here – they were weeks ago. Do you think that’s it? Do you think its over?”

The question brought bile to Derek’s mouth. “No,” he said. 

This wasn't the way it was supposed to end. He had thought he was going to have a happy - no. If it wasn’t this, it would be something else. There was no… there was no _over_. Not for them. Not for him.

They finished the rest of the patrol in silence.

\--

Stiles’ hair had been sticking up at the front, from where he’d run anxious fingers through it. “Derek!” he’d called out, the door still bouncing open as he strode inside. His gaze had found Derek and he’d flailed. “Have you seen my orientation –” Derek had just pointed to the table, eyebrows raised. “– folder. Jesus, that was close.”

“If you didn’t leave everything to the last minute,” Derek had reminded him, “you wouldn’t be in such a panic now that you have to pack.” His stomach had rolled a little at the words, anxiety at the thought of Stiles _gone_ making itself known. Not for the first time, he’d had to concentrate on keeping his mouth closed; there was no good in telling Stiles _now_ , just as he was moving to the other side of the continent. It wouldn’t be fair, to either of them. Derek had finally rented out some of the apartments in his building, and was in the middle of construction projects on the rest. He’d joined the volunteer firefighters. He’d made a life for himself.

And Stiles, who had lost so much of his high school years to the bizarre bullshit Beacon Hills brought deserved a college experience that didn’t include long-distance lycanthropic boyfriends. 

It hadn’t meant it wasn’t hard for Derek to say nothing, when he was leaving him.

Stiles hovered in the background, fiddling with the plastic folder, laughing students on the front of it. Derek opened a cupboard for something to do, and then decided to keep Stiles in the loft a while longer by making lunch. He’d pulled open the fridge and examined the contents.

“Hey, Der’?” Stiles had said, tone uncertain in an unusual way.

“Yeah.” Sandwiches, he could do maybe. Stiles like turkey, though, and he was out.

“Hey, you know, school. It’s like, it’s only four years. But four years, it could seem like, ‘hey only four years’, or it could seem like forever, you know? I mean, they say as you get older, time seems to pass faster or something, which might have something to do with ratios maybe? If you’re eight, four years is half your life, but if you’re like... well, twenty-three, it might not seem like that long a time, right?

Derek waited him out, counting eggs. There were five, that could do.

“So I guess, if it was like that, one could – hypothetically, right, a hypothetical person – expect things to stay the same. And then leaving, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Even if there was something important they wanted to say. And, right, saying it before they left, that wouldn’t be right anyway. It could ruin everything. It would be better to wait until after. Unless… unless four years is too long, and everything changed before they could come back. So, I guess, I mean, not for any reason in particular, just because you’re here, but what do you think? Do you think four years, would that be a long time for you?”

“In Beacon Hills?” Derek had asked with a scoff. “Who knows? I’m just about to make lunch, if you want eggs.”

Derek had turned to the counter, feigning nonchalance. He’d already turned the burner on to heat the pan before he’d responded. “Yeah,” Stiles had sighed. “I could eat.”

\--

At the end of his shift, Derek swung by the Sheriff’s station. It was a better bet than the Stilinski house, of one wanted to find the Sheriff, no matter the hour. Derek wasn’t the only one who knew very well that it was more about the silence in the corners of the empty house than it was the endless parade of work. 

He’d brought dinner, something that would have been Stiles-approved, and even though there were few other options, since eating the fresh garden-grown vegetables instead of canned food was a priority, he always saw a tightening of the Sheriff’s mouth when the thought registered. Sitting across the desk from him, they ate their fresh-grown salads.

“Damn, kid,” the Sheriff said after a bite of spinach. “Stiles wouldn’t have killed you if you’d brought me one with chicken in it, at least.”

Derek’s reflexes were the only thing that saved the paperwork strewn across the Sheriff’s desk from a thorough soaking. He gripped the cup tightly, watching the water ripple and settle on the surface, his fingerprints clear through the glass. Across from him, the Sheriff sighed. “You and I both know –” he started, but Derek interrupted:

“Grant asked today if it was over.”

They sat in silence for a moment. “I kind of think it might be,” was the steady reply.

Derek’s mouth twisted to the side and he put the glass down on the table before it shattered. He swallowed, opened his mouth, and then had to swallow again. “It’s not –” He stopped before he could whine like a child about things being fair. 

“I know,” he was told, regardless. Stiles’ father coughed, wiping a hand over his face. Derek wouldn’t look up from his salad, giving them both a minute. 

“They only had bacon bits,” Derek said into the heavy silence.

“Ah,” he replied, voice clogged thick. “That he _would_ have killed you for.”

Their laughter was forced only at first. After that, it came freely, and both pretended not to notice that the release brought tears with it.


End file.
